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| Full Name |
Amanda Julie Swensen

| Nickname |
Mandie is short for Amanda, a name she positively despises, as to her, it suggests someone stuck-up or prissy. Mandie suggest more modesty.

| Age |
21

| Gender |
Female

| Likes |
* Indoors
* Dogs
* Orchestral and film-inspired music
* Interviewing people (she enjoys seeing other perspectives)
* Friendly debates
* Historical films
* Classy men
* Home decorating
* Orange

| Dislikes |
* Her parents
* Outdoors
* Anything with more than four legs
* Being bragged on
* Promiscuous people
* Dancing
* Goth people
* Lazy people
* Being photographed
* Alcohol

| Personality |
Mandie is, first and foremost, not an athlete.
She will talk to them because she has to. She was born to two by fate. She will give athletes a chance when talking to them. But Mandie herself is completely and entirely not an athlete.
Instead, Mandie is a journalist for a small-town paper in New Mexico. She’s introverted and modest, finding it challenging to speak to large groups at times, especially during parties. One of her greatest social challenges is a sudden change of plans, even if it’s something small like getting a spoon instead of a fork or going to a different restaurant than planned, because she’s not very adaptable. She doesn’t grow angry often, but when she becomes angry, it takes her a while to return to normal, and she doesn’t hide it well. She tends to hug the walls at large social events, and even at mealtimes, she’ll stay away from the others.
Many people start out distant with others and then open up as time goes on. Mandie goes the other way. She is very friendly and open in the beginning, but as time goes by and her opinions of others evolve, she will cut off ties, suddenly stop talking, or grow very attached to a person. Opening up for her is a way of icebreaking, because it shows the innermost personality of another person, not just the superficial things like ‘favorite color’ or ‘career path.’
She is currently in a very rough long-distance relationship with a 22-year-old European. Although they connect on the superficial level, she feels that he cannot connect with her beyond that, and the distance makes things even tougher. Therefore, although she is in a relationship, she could find herself growing romantically interested in another person.
And I know this is appearance, not personality, but she tends to overdress just slightly. She frequently wears patterned skirts and blouses or sweaters. She can always be found with her journal, either writing or sketching.

| Place Of Origin |
Born in Cleveland, Ohio; now in New Mexico

| History |
Mandie’s childhood, in short, is filled with plenty of disagreements about what she ought to be.
Her fights with her parents began by the age of seven. Her mother had placed her in soccer and basketball teams without her consent, resulting in a bitter, cutthroat argument that lasted an hour and ended in a relationship that remains tainted. Her father, busy with being a successful football coach, was fairly absent, but agreed with Mandie’s mother that she ought to be athletic and continue the family’s traditions. When asked about her parents or compared to them, she tends to become irritable, since she has little respect for them.
On her 18th birthday, her bags were packed and car full of gas. When her parents left the house for work, she made the very long drive to a small town in New Mexico, where she resides today. She went to a community college, and because she was cut off from her parents’ financial support, she is drowning in student loans and living in a small apartment. Still, she has no desire to return to the life she had with her family. Instead, she prefers to carve her own path in life so her achievements are reached independently.
So why the trip? In simple terms, Mandie wants a restart. Since moving to New Mexico, she has yet to truly settle in and become comfortable, make friends, find her true place in the world. She feels in flux. Therefore, her goal on the trip is to meet some people and learn more about herself and the world. Her family probably isn’t okay with her leaving, but that hasn’t stopped her before!

| Extra |
Her favorite food is tomato soup.

| Penelope Matthews |
“Something seems a bit 'off' about her. She seems outwardly nice, but it seems like she’s got that ‘rich entitled girl’ attitude to her behind it all, and I feel like I'm being lied to. I’ll keep my distance, at any rate.”

| Leo Matthews |
“Penelope has the charisma and the personality, but he’s the brains of the pair. He lacks that 'popular' vibe I get from Penelope, and he seems a bit more responsible. Personally, I prefer him to her.”

| Calliope Leroux |
“First note - what a fantastic name! As for her personality, her introvertedness is a blessing; it seems like everyone else here is very, very extroverted, and it's nice to have someone to talk to. Her free-form, laidback qualities are a bit annoying, though. I’m not sure she’s quite the person to be going on this trip, given that she’s been quite contained in her little bubble for a while and hasn’t traveled much, but she’s a pleasant person.”

| Jasper Chung |
“Impulsive, cocky, practically insane. It doesn’t seem like he ever has a plan; he just goes for it. It’s certainly exciting for him, but it completely upturns the plans and flow of things. He’s very passionate for travel, though, so I suppose it’s good that he’s come along with all of us.”

| Alycia Carmody |
"I simply don't know how to read her. She seems nice enough, and like many of the others on this trip, she has the 'free spirit' thing going for her, but I haven't gotten to know her too well. I guess I'll just keep talking to her until I figure her out."

| Allia Lemon |
"My first impression of her is, 'Hey, look at me, I'm tough and independent!' Something tells me she'll be a partier on this trip, and I know I'm probably the minority, but I'm not a very big fan of parties, alcoholic or otherwise. I simply don't respect her; at least, not yet."

| Alex Bryant |
"Eh... I'm a little iffy as far as Alex is concerned. He seems to have the ability to be serious somewhere within him, but he also has the ability to be rather rude. Then again, so do I, so I suppose I can't judge too harshly. We'll see how he turns out as time goes by."

| Nathaniel Sheffield |
"I can't tell everything about him, but I met him in a bar my friends dragged me to. Tried to pick me up. He was charming, but he's not very good at hearing the word 'no,' either. The mustache makes him look like a pedophile, too. I'll keep my distance for now; maybe he was just drunk, maybe he was acting differently because he had performed minutes before, but he's not a person I trust."

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| Nathan, Nate, Sheff' |

| 24 |

| Male |

| Likes |
[+]Music, especially acoustic guitar
[+]The woods, nature, and fish
[+]Writing (though he's not very good at it)
[+]Silence
[+]The sound of the wind
[+]A small stray dog he found and takes with him everywhere
[+]His sister's cooking
[+]Running (something he has a strange talent for)

| Dislikes |
[-]Superficiality
[-]Noises repeated over and over again
[-]Reading (gets too agitated)
[-]Birds
[-]Corn
[-]The sun when it's just rising
[-]People attempting to help him
[-]Soccer

| Personality |
To say that Nate is antisocial would be to vastly oversimplify a frankly complex issue of the mind. Nate is bitterly sarcastic, to a point that it starts becoming hard to tell whether or not he's kidding. His fatalist look on life has left him hollow and cynical, rejecting all sorts of interpersonal relationships, regardless of whether one had or could have existed.

Spending the majority of his time alone, it would be somewhat surprising for some to find that he can actually be quite sociable if he's in the right mood. To those that only experienced these brief periods of sociality, he appears genial, gregarious, and more or less normal to anyone, if a bit reliant on deadpan sarcasm for his humor. In order to not feel hollow and bitter, however, he sheds this extroverted shell every so often to slink away, alone, and find that everything with him is as bad as it is.

As it is, Nate is primarily regarded as somewhat of an outcast, a failure in the genetic pool of extroverts. The sad fact is that Nate genuinely feels the pull to interact with others, but when he does, he often gets muddled in cynicism, lashing out at anyone who tries to get close to him. Anyone who knows him regards him with suspicion, and anyone who doesn't regards him with the same morbid curiosity one might have over a dying animal. In his disregard of love, he has stopped believing it exists, and it would take something truly miraculous to change that.

| Place Of Origin |
Newark, New Jersey

| History |
Nate's history is one wrought with self-inflicted pain and heartbreak. To start, he is recovering from a crippling drug addiction started in his waning high school years that both tore him and his family apart. It was near the end of his sophomore year that he first tried marijuana--which was nothing special, he had thought; everyone smokes marijuana at least once in their life. As he casually dabbled in the drug through his junior year, a friend of his introduced him to the wildly erratic effects of prescription pills. Nate tried this for a short time before ditching them, finding the results more trying on his stomach than his mind.

The summer before senior year was when he tried heroin first, and it was at that moment that he truly became an addict. It was at a summer beach house in Chincoteague, Virginia, where the sun was high and warm, the ocean soft and green, and the women were aplenty and willing. This beach house was used extensively by his friends as a drug hideout and mini-harem, and the things that went on behind its wind-washed doors could frighten even the most stalwart of hearts.

Regardless, Nate was hooked, and through senior year he experimented with wildly varying drugs of different qualities. The terrifying effects of PCP forced him to legitimately question whether his addiction was a sustainable habit, but it wasn't until he nearly ruptured a blood vessel from heroin use that his family finally got involved. Aware that something was wrong from the start--missing valuables, $1,634 missing from the bank--his parents instinctively placed him in a rehabilitation hospital, a move he so detested that one night--after a day spent drinking his parents' liquor--he stormed up to his mother and threatened to kill her if she sent him there.

That was the final straw, and his father promptly called the nearest psychiatric hospital, where he was taken away in a strait jacket and kept in solitary confinement for several weeks. Coming out humbled, emasculated, and thoroughly doubting the goodwill of mankind, Nate looked to an outlet. He found one in music. Combined with his natural proclivity for rhythm, he became quite good at the guitar, eventually signing up for night gigs in bars and nightclubs. The little money he made on the side was enough for his parents to begin to forgive him, but they figured he needed something else, something special. So, on his 24th birthday, they gave him a trip with several other people his age from across the world.

"To meet people who you can trust," his mother had said.

"To see the world and experience something magical," his father had said.

The naturally skeptical Nate had replied, "You should look at the tree outside our window."

But he complied, if only to assuage his parents' worry, and with low expectations for the future, he prepares for the next few weeks to be some of the dullest of his life.

| Extra |
Nate actually has had several girlfriends, but none of them stayed with him. (Most were too overwhelmed with his issues to do so, and one left him because she thought his friend was better.)

One of the few people Nate loves and respects is his younger sister Phoebe, who was one of the reasons he tried to quit drugs in the first place.